What former Lotus boss Dany Bahar did next
The ex-Lotus boss’s latest venture takes the cosmetic modification of high-end cars to a super-luxurious extreme
Dany Bahar was always heading for a big comeback. The former Lotus CEO, best known for the five-model recovery plan that blew up a storm of controversy when launched in 2010, may have departed Hethel in a flurry of legal recriminations, but it was always clear he had too many friends and too much influence in the unfathomable world of cars for the super-rich for him merely to fade away.Yet the size and scale of Bahar’s comeback has surprised even the man himself. Today he is founder and CEO of a two-year-old Modena-based automotive design and engineering company, Ares, named for the Greek god of war. Its core business is improving “everything you see or touch” in super-luxury cars to make them more exclusive and distinctive than the original maker’s build processes could ever allow.Most projects go to Middle Eastern or Asian clients, and the company has already delivered 120 of them.The big secret, says Bahar, is to cast the owner as the car’s creator, while giving him or her access to top-class designers to translate wishes into reality. Prices are high but not quite stratospheric, he says. A full-on redesign of a Range Rover interior in wood instead of leather – a four-week job – would set you back £75,000. The entire recladding of an existing car in unique carbonfibre panels – an eight-month task – will likely carry a bill of £750,000. Really big jobs can go into seven figures.Why set the business up in Modena? Because set-up costs are lower